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12 Content Marketing Best Practices for Schools and Colleges

These days, people depend on technologies a lot.
Their attitude towards various things changes because of that and every business that wants to succeed under these circumstances has to adjust and adapt in order to stay on board.
This affects almost every area of our lives including education. While the whole educational system still remains pretty classic these days, some things did change a lot.
For example, students and their parents prefer to find some information related to schools, colleges, and learning process itself online instead of traveling to this school or calling the principal.
That’s why every modern school and college needs to provide students and their parents with all the information they need, sharing it on their website and on social media.

Aug 21, 2017

Their attitude towards various things changes because of that and every business that wants to succeed under these circumstances has to adjust and adapt in order to stay on board.

This affects almost every area of our lives including education.

While the whole educational system still remains pretty classic these days, some things did change a lot.

For example, students and their parents prefer to find some information related to schools, colleges, and learning process itself online instead of traveling to this school or calling the principal.

That’s why every modern school and college needs to provide students and their parents with all the information they need, sharing it on their website and on social media.

While this might seem complex and challenging at first, this can actually benefit any school or college as the right content strategy can help them stand out among their competitors, drawing more talented students.

However, in order to achieve such result, a proper content strategy has to be developed. This isn’t an easy thing to do. Even if you use the right keywords and focus on providing all the necessary information, you might still miss the point and fail to draw new talents to your school or college.

If you want to make your content marketing plan as good as it can be, here’s what you should focus on.

1. Make a clear content strategy

Your strategy has to be detailed and easy to understand at the same time. Also, you need to present it to the rest of the marketing team and make sure that everyone follows it.

2. Don’t be afraid to change something

Creating a 100 percent successful strategy from the start is nearly impossible. There are plenty of things that might happen after and affect it.

It’s not a flawless strategy that makes any business successful, it’s the way you adapt it. If you are able to react to unexpected circumstances quickly, adjusting your strategy accordingly, everything will work out just fine.

3. Involve everyone

A good content strategy represents the whole school or college in the best possible way. Therefore, it shouldn’t be created by one or two persons. It’s important for people from all academic departments to participate, making their valuable suggestions on how to make the most out of this strategy.

4. Set goals

Goals are important for various reasons. First, they give you a focus: instead of trying to achieve too many abstract things at once, you focus on achieving one specific goal.

Second, they help you measure the progress and the overall effectiveness of your strategy. Of course, this happens only when the goals are specific enough – therefore, you have to set them this way. Include deadlines (both final one and some smaller ones if your goal is big enough), try to think of how you’re going to evaluate whether you’ve reached your goal or not.

Also, try not to set too many goals at once – this way there’s a possibility you’ll lose your focus and won’t be able to reach them all.

5. Make your content different

Don’t settle with articles or blog posts only. There’s plenty other types of content you can create and you should try doing so in order to offer more diverse things to your audience.

For example, you can come up with an eBook about research paper topics, offer some webinars, useful videos or infographics.

6. Make it personal

If you are going to use email marketing or will be replying to readers’ comments online, be sure to make it personal.All you need to do is to actually address people you answer or write to by their names. This will make it more pleasant for them and also will help you build a more pleasant relationship with them.

7. You need to have a core message

All the content you create has to deliver one specific message – the one that will drive new students to your school or college. This message is really simple: what exactly makes your school or college special and different from the others?

Try to answer this question yourself and then think of ways to implement this answer in your content.

8. Don’t forget about a call to action

All your content has to not only deliver your main message but also include a call to action.

It can either invite your target audience to learn more about your school or encourage them to apply, also making it clear on when, where, and how they can do that.

9. Social media matter

Just as offering high-quality content to your target audience is important, social media are highly important too. They are one of the best (and free) ways to promote your content, to give information, and to build valuable connections with your target audience.

If you have a website that doesn’t allow the readers to leave comments, focus on communicating with them on social media.

10. Respond to comments and do this in time

When it comes to ordinary blogging, people are free to respond to readers’ comments a couple times a week without risking to lose their audience. When it comes to business, however, this won’t be the right approach.

When you represent a school or a college, people will come to you not simply reacting to your content but asking various questions about your learning process, fees, courses, opportunities, and so on.

They want these questions to be answered as soon as possible and so you should focus on doing so. Consider hiring a person for that or giving this responsibility to a person in your department who’s able to handle it well.

11. Create a separate strategy for promotion

In order to achieve the best results, you have to know not only how to create amazing content but also how to promote it.

Come up with a strategy that includes all social media you’re going to use for promotion, a schedule for every social media, a plan on collaboration and partnership, and so on.

12. Watch your competitors

This is important for various reasons.

First of all, you have to know that you do differ from them in terms of content and promotion – this will help you stand out among them.

Second, this can help you optimize your content strategy to make it more effective and original.

These tips will help you improve your content marketing strategy; however, they are definitely not the only ones you can use.

Does your school or college have a strategy already?

Did you focus on any of these points or did you invent your own tools and tips?

Please share your opinion in the comment section below.

Guest contribution by: Betti Wilson a content writer and a career specialist for college students. She is a content marketer, sharing experience on writing, education, and self-development in her publications. Connect with her on Facebook.